Sorry about the format. It's my stupid word processor. Enjoy.
Shave
THE YOUNG MAN stood in front of the mirror with the razor clutched in his hand.
"To shave or not to shave," he thought.
He had grown a full beard by now. He liked his facial hair for the most part. His
sideburns and his chin hair were all nice, but his hair above his upper lip was something rotten.
That scratchy feeling he got when he rubbed his chin in an inquizitive fashion was something he
favored, however. That was a happy feeling.
"To shave or not to shave," he thought.
The young man had a recurring dream where he was on a vast iceberg floating in the
middle of the Arctic Ocean. There was nothingness on this iceberg. He wandered about looking
for something; anything. Eventually he found an glow from one corner of the iceberg. He went
towards the light, and he discovered a bronze time machine. The machine was a gleaming bronze
color and on the front "Deus Ex Machina" was carved on the front. In the middle, there was a
throne carved out of the bronze, fixed with pine green upholstery and in front of the throne, there
was an array of switches, levers, flashing buttons, and anything else a child could think of. There
were no wheels, only a flat bottom. In fact, there was nothing on the machine that appeared to be
for movement.
There were parts of the dream that varied every time. Sometimes the machine would be
silver, for example. But there was always a point where the young man climbed into the machine
and sat in front of the levers. Just as he was about to pull one, he awoke instantly.
"To shave or not to shave," he thought again.
There are all sorts of conspiracy theories. Aliens, for instance. He was sure that there were
aliens, but They would never release that information for fear of "public security" or some cal
like that. He was sure that there really was a Holy Grail and that they had probably found the
thing, but those religious fanatics would never say so. They would claim that God, in all his glory
and majesty, would not want something as holy as that to become some public spectacle. Hell,
maybe they are right. After all, you cannot trust anyone on this Earth. Not even yourself. Perhaps
if they did put something like the Holy Grail on display in some museum some crackpot whacko
would break in and steal the thing, or maybe they would just burn down the whole thing. You
never know these days. Someone is always trying something new to destroy things. Before They
dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, people would have laughed at the destruction that thing caused.
The same thing happened with 9-11. That is why you cannot trust anyone. Anyone is capable of
doing something like that, even someone like the Pope. Someone would just have to set him off in
the right way. The older Popes from a long time ago were all corrupted, so why not modern day
ones?
"To shave or not to shave," he thought for the last time. If it was going to be done, he was
going to do it now. He slid the razor across his face, and the hair was starting to fall off in flurries. More and more the hair fell, and eventually his face was almost bare. He slid the razor across a little patch he had missed, and he purposefully sliced his neck over his jugular. He watched the blood stream out of his neck, and did nothing. He just watched the beauty of the event. He watched and watched. Eventually his eyes got blurrier and blurrier and eventually he passed out.
He was in that same old dream. He was on that iceberg again floating in the middle of
nowhere. He was not cold at all this time, however. He was filled with a warm feeling throughout
his innards. He ventured to that same corner of the iceberg; he knew the path to the machine well by now. There he found that same machine again. The awe the machine inspired swelled in his
heart, and he climbed onto the throne and grasped the middle lever and pulled back.
Then he awoke in the hospital | 